Irish student created a water purifier for plastic

Who do you think makes the most importantscientific discoveries? Some people believe that gray-haired scientists in white coats are doing this - in most cases they are, but do not forget about young scientists. For example, American students have already come up with a way to protect astronauts from cosmic radiation. Ireland also has young geniuses - one of them is the 18-year-old Fionn Ferreira, who recently received a reward of $ 50,000 from Google. He invented a liquid, which is extremely necessary for humanity, which can clean the oceans of our planet from tiny particles of plastic. Perhaps the discovery of this guy will save us from one of the possible variations of the ends of the world.

Microscopic particles of plastic enter our body even when drinking water

In the oceans there are really a lotmicroscopic particles of plastic. They fall into the water through our fault, because humanity has not yet abandoned plastic bags and plastic bottles. Not only have we not started using safer materials, we are also irresponsibly leaving plastic trash in the forests, where they can lie for hundreds of years and literally poison our planet. Even our clothes contain plastic - when the washing machines finish, they wash tiny particles of polyester and other components of artificial fabrics into the gutter, from where microplastics enter the oceans and pollute them.

Harmful of dirty water

Contaminated water, in turn, causesirreparable harm to fish and other aquatic inhabitants. For example, in an article about the case of snow falling with plastic particles in the Arctic, we mentioned that in the stomachs of some animals, ecologists find kilograms of plastic. Microplastic is found even in our blood, because the tiny size of plastic particles allows them to penetrate deep into our bodies. If the human body becomes too clogged with plastic, it can cause heart problems or even lungs to deform.

Almost all of us drink dirty water

New Water Purifier

Perhaps from global pollution of the planetplastic rubbish will save us a fluid created by an Irish guy named Fionn Ferreira. This young scientist is actively participating in the Google Science Award among researchers aged 13 to 18. For his work, he has already received 12 awards and continues to amaze the scientific community. The idea of ​​creating a microplastic fluid purifying water came to him while sailing on a kayak.

In his 18 years, Fionn Ferreira has already made several scientific discoveries

During one of the swims, Fionn found in the watera stone covered with a layer of oil, to which a pile of small plastic debris adhered. The guy quickly realized that plastic and oily substances like oil can stick to each other. Realizing this, the young scientist created an oily liquid from vegetable oil and mixed it with ferrofluid - a liquid substance that is attracted to a magnet.

By the way, beautiful sculptures can be created from ferromagnetic fluid.

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Having completed his idea, the guy started ittest. Adding the mixture to water contaminated with microscopic particles of plastic, he lowered the magnet into the container and pulled it out. As expected, the microplastic adhered to the oily liquid, and the magnetic property of the ferrofluid made it possible to extract all the dirt. As a result, the water turned out to be clean.

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Having done the experiment several times, guyHe calculated that the liquid he created removes 88% of the plastic debris in the water. Polyester, spandex and lycra contained in synthetic clothing can be easily cleaned. But polypropylene contained in plastic bottles sometimes does not stick to an oily liquid. But the fact remains - the fluid created by the student is really effective in cleaning plastic contaminated water.